


the blueness of a wound

by summerofspock



Series: of joints and of marrow [4]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, First Time, Hand Jobs, M/M, Oblivious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:22:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26268691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerofspock/pseuds/summerofspock
Summary: the first time they find each other after a battleand the last time
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: of joints and of marrow [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672942
Comments: 16
Kudos: 158





	the blueness of a wound

**Author's Note:**

> this is WAY outside my usual style but I hope you enjoy it anyway  
> CW: blood, offscreen graphic violence mentions, historical inaccuracy
> 
> title from proverbs 20:30

When Heaven had finally triumphed over Lucifer and the usurpers, the archangels had given the remaining angels a choice.

We will take away your memories of these battles, of this needless violence. If you so choose, you may go back to your positions without the memories of what you have done.

Aziraphale had chosen to keep his memories.

At the time, he told himself it was selfish to forget the violence he had committed on behalf of the Almighty. Violence is violence no matter the cause. He was a leader. A general. A principality. His platoon could forget, but someone would need to remember.

The memories plagued him for some time before the creation of Eden, but it was in humanity, on Earth, and in the kindness of the demon Crowley that Aziraphale found some solace. Some ability to forget the screams of an angel as he plunged a dagger into their eye and cast them out of Heaven.

It was on Earth in the company of humans and in the company of Crowley that Aziraphale began to grow soft. Soft about the middle. Soft about the heart.

And then humans discovered war and Aziraphale realized his choice to remember had not been one of righteousness but one of fear. He needed to remember the war because he never wanted to feel the horror of sinking a blade into another being’s flesh for the first time. 

He’d had his first time.

Never again.

**

It happened after a battle on the edge of the Euphrates. Aziraphale had seen Crowley on the field before. Of course he had. Opposite sides. It made sense they'd fight that way too.

The battle was short and swift. More of a skirmish than a real fight. Aziraphale wasn't even injured, the inciting party fled before any could be mortally wounded. Aziraphale still had blood on his hands and when he stumbled to the river to scrub them clean, he found he wasn't the only one to find solace in the rushing water.

"Sorry," Aziraphale stammered, coming to an abrupt stop when he saw Crowley knelt by the water, scrubbing at his face.

"Plenty of riverbank to share," Crowley said with very little humor as he stood, untying his meager leather armor, grunting with effort.

Aziraphale dropped his gaze and his sword, the muffled thump of it in the dirt swallowed by the lazy sounds of the babbling river. He'd only managed one good strike to a man's thigh. It would scar and the man would limp for the rest of his life. Unless it got infected.

Aziraphale didn't like to think what would happen if it got infected.

He dropped to his knees and pushed his sleeves up to his elbows before submerging his hands in the cooler water. The sunshine glinted off the winding current, the water slick rocks. He could still feel the rush of blood that came with every strike, with the parry, with the dodge. He could taste the tang of blood in his mouth where a man had landed a blow to his cheek. His body was still ready for a fight that had been thwarted, muscles tense, blood heated. 

A muffled grunt drew his attention. Crowley was tearing off his tunic, revealing the sticky patch of blood on his side where a knife had sliced through the leather of his armor. "Bloody battles and blasted humans," Crowley hissed, tearing off his shirt too.

Aziraphale had long tossed his own armor down, too intent on scrubbing the blood from his arms to really care where it fell. His heart rate had yet to settle. It thrummed and thrummed, rushing like a river towards the falls and when he looked at Crowley his stomach tipped over the edge, gravity doing something awful, something needy, something heated.

"Are you alright?" Aziraphale asked, voice dropping like a stone. He could see Crowley’s pulse in his throat, still racing, still rushing as fast as Aziraphale’s. Did the fight affect him too? Was this just the body? Was this just the blood? 

"S’not deep," Crowley said, poking at the slash that ran over his side, arcing up over his thin chest between two ribs. Aziraphale's pulse picked up. The ache in his stomach dropped lower. His penis had been hard since the first strike of his sword; that's how it always was. But, looking at Crowley, it throbbed.

"Let me help," Aziraphale said. He wasn't thinking, his vision narrowed to the sweat matted hair on Crowley's chest, the way the blood darkened the ginger curls. Crowley cocked an eyebrow.

"I've got a bit of experience with wounds by now," Aziraphale explained. "More than you I'd wager."

Without waiting for a reply, Aziraphale miracled a bowl of fresh water and clean cloth. "Come here," he said and patted the stone in front of him.

The river trailed beside them, lazy here beside the expanse of brush before it rushed around the bend. The soft sounds of its movement were drowned by a roaring in Aziraphale's ears as Crowley took a seat in front of him, his meager underthings barely keeping him decent. Here, with no distance between them, Aziraphale could see Crowley wasn't so unaffected by the fight.

Crowley must have noticed him looking. Crowley always noticed things Aziraphale wished he wouldn't. He met Aziraphale's gaze and even though his mouth didn't move, Aziraphale could swear he smirked.

"Nothing like a bit of a tussle to get the blood pumping. Can't really help it. Called blood lust for a reason."

Crowley tipped back on the rock, dropping his weight onto one hand. His fingers gripped the edges, hands broad, knuckles white. Blood trickled down his side, but he didn't seem to notice as he purposefully flicked his eyes, yellow sclera blooming, down to Aziraphale's groin, where his penis was an obvious hard line pressed up against his filthy tunic.

"I can see you know what I mean."

Embarrassment flooded Aziraphale's cheeks, hot and shameful. "It's just...it's just how these corporations work."

Crowley wrinkled his nose, sniffing dismissively. "Yeah, a bit weird. I usually patch myself up and then take care of it the old-fashioned way."

"The—the old-fashioned way?" Aziraphale stammered.

Crowley's eyebrows shot up to his hairline and he made a lewd gesture with his hand. When Aziraphale didn’t reply, he scoffed. "Oh, come off it. You don't wank after a battle?"

Aziraphale spluttered. "What? No! I'm hardly...I'm not _in the mood._ "

"It's not about being in the mood. It's about getting off," Crowley said archly. When Aziraphale gasped and looked away, Crowley _did_ smile, a sort of boyish smirk. "Don't tell me you've never wanked."

"I don't—it's not—" Aziraphale broke off and swallowed. This conversation was getting out of hand. He couldn't tear his eyes from Crowley, not his face, not his chest, not his hands, not even Crowley's sharp smile as it softened and one of those wide hands (strong hands) came to toy with the hem of Aziraphale's tunic.

"I think this is the bit where I offer to help you."

"You're hurt," Aziraphale choked out, but Crowley's hand was creeping up under his tunic.

He thought of all the times before this where Crowley showed him something he'd never tried before. Roasted lamb in the marketplace in Antep. Honeyed wine outside the desert. All the ways Crowley had shown him it was alright to be soft in this world. It was alright to enjoy himself, to find pleasure in human things.

What was one more human thing?

"Yes," he breathed. It was only the rushing in his ears, the heat of Crowley's hand, the ache in his body, his groin. "Show me."

Crowley pushed his tunic up around his waist, tucking it into his sword belt. Without the extra fabric, his erection was a lewd outline in his trousers. Crowley didn't take his eyes from Aziraphale’s body as he undid the tie at his waist, pushing down his trousers and underthings in one movement. Wrapping his hand around Aziraphale's cock, Crowley made a noise in his throat that Aziraphale didn't understand. Disgust? Arousal? He didn't know and found it hard to care as Crowley moved his hand expertly up and down his length. 

With Crowley sitting, it was easy to slip his hands into Crowley's hair. Something he'd only done once when they were very drunk. He’d touched one of Crowley's braids. Called it pretty. The strands were just as fine as he remembered as they came free of the tie holding them at the nape of Crowley's neck. Crowley's hand stopped moving and Aziraphale tried to apologize. He shouldn't have touched him. Of course, that was an overstep. But then Crowley surged to his feet, tucking his face into Aziraphale’s neck and moving his hand faster over his shaft, tighter and with a slight twist that made Aziraphale’s knees weak. He felt himself leak, slicking the movement of his foreskin as Crowley touched him.

Crowley pressed close and Aziraphale's fears and embarrassment rushed away when he felt his erection against his hip. "Would you—" Crowley gasped, rocking slowly into him.

Aziraphale pushed clumsily at Crowley’s underthings until they were just down about his thighs. "I don't know what I'm doing,” he confessed.

"Just touch me," Crowley said, voice rasping over the thin skin of Aziraphale's throat. "Promise I won't last long."

Aziraphale wrapped his hand around Crowley's length, gasping at the shocking heat. He could smell the copper of the blood smearing between their chests, the slight tang of sweat in Crowley's hair. Crowley grunted—pain or pleasure, Aziraphale didn't know—and Aziraphale had the strangest urge to kiss him. To tip back his sharp chin and capture his mouth while they brought each other this pleasure so acute it could only be human.

"Good. That's good," Crowley said, the words another burst of air over his throat.

Aziraphale groaned, a rush of blood, a kick in his stomach, as he spilled over Crowley's hand. Crowley came too, small gasps of pleasure uttered even under Aziraphale’s inexpert ministrations. 

Crowley pulled himself together quickly, wincing at the pull of his wound as he dropped into a crouch and washed his hands in the river. "That's better, don't you think?"

Aziraphale tied up his trousers. Cleared his throat. "Yes." He cast his gaze down the ridges of Crowley's exposed back, saw the place where blood had dripped onto his stark hip bone. "Much better."

Crowley shot him a grin. "See, I do have a few good ideas."

There were battles Aziraphale wished to forget. Bodies fell under his sword in the name of God. He wasn't a fighter, but he fought.

And afterwards, sometimes (almost every time) Crowley would come to him and they would patch each other's wounds. Crowley would make some sort of joke, offer up an invitation to some new place next time they were in the city, whatever city together, reminding Aziraphale that yes, it's alright, there's more to earth than this fighting, this bloodshed. And sometimes (almost every time) Crowley would brush his fingers over Aziraphale’s thighs and they would do exactly this:

Let their blood rush for reasons other than death, feel pain only in the body for as long as they could manage. Bruises fade faster than memories, Aziraphale knew even as he pressed his fingers into the ones Crowley left on his neck, his thighs, his hips.

He wished to forget certain things, the feel of a knife in flesh, the crack of a bone under his hand, but he knew better than to ask for that. Someone should remember the wounds left on the earth.


End file.
